Nations self-determination also reflects specific Commonwealth jurisdictional responsibilities, and its commitments and agreements,13 regarding the rights of First Nations peoples. The equal access to justice duty in turn embeds access to justice principles that are important to the realisation of rights within the Human Rights Act. These procedural duties are discussed in chapter 7. The Commission also proposes that thematic instruments are reflected through the inclusion of a clause that references the seven core treaties that Australia has ratified and requires the rights in the Human Rights Act to be interpreted in light of those treaties. This will encourage courts (as well as Parliament and the Executive) to take into account these instruments when interpreting the rights within the Human Rights Act. For example, it may be useful to refer to the CRC when interpreting the right of a young person to privacy. This approach is intended to enable a fuller consideration of the breadth of Australia’s human rights obligations, beyond the core rights contained in the Human Rights Act (which will largely implement the ICCPR and ICESCR). This is discussed in chapter 9. All public authorities would have a positive duty to comply with human rights. Public authorities include government departments, agencies, offices and bodies, as well as contractors exercising functions on behalf of public authorities. Under a Human Rights Act, public In the parliamentary context legislation will be reviewed against all the treaties and Statements of Compatibility prepared in light of those obligations. Although causes of action will be limited to the rights in the Human Rights Act, the consideration of rights as part of the legislative process needs to be broader and reach the entire set of obligations. In the next section, the Commission makes recommendations about the specific rights that should be included within the Human Rights Act, with a standalone cause of action, based on contents of the ICCPR and ICESCR. Most of these rights are framed similarly to the state and territory instruments with some modification to wording, usually to better reflect terminology used in the international instruments. The Commission also proposes some rights not included in state and territory instruments, that implement additional ICESCR rights (noting that states and territories have already included several key ICESCR rights). During Free & Equal consultations, the Commission was able to gather views about which rights to include and why, based in part on the experience of Victorian, Queensland and ACT jurisdictions, which has strongly influenced the Commission’s recommendations. authorities must consider human rights when making decisions, and must act in compliance with human rights. This is discussed in chapter 6. Public authorities would also be required to engage in participation processes where the participation duty is relevant. FREE AND EQUAL A Human Rights Act for Australia 2022 109